At the end of 2010, Facebook implemented what it thought was a revolution in messaging with a new service that combined email, text messaging, and instant messaging into one for the social network. As part of that new system, every Facebook user got an @facebook.com email address.

We’re now in 2014, and Facebook has realized that its all-encompassing messaging revolution didn’t work out as planned. In fact, in the first few days of March the social network is planning to shutdown the Facebook email service completely.

Removing the ability for over a billion users to send and receive email through their own @facebook.com addresses should have alarm bells ringing, especially when it is set to go offline in as little as a week’s time. You’d be right if it wasn’t for the fact no one uses Facebook email.

Facebook has admitted as much and claimed it is the main reason they no longer want to pursue email as a service on the social network. Users can continue to use the 3rd-party email address associated with their account, but facebook.com addresses will cease to work in the coming weeks. And the fact it will only be live for a couple more weeks shows you just how little the service must be used.

Hopefully no one reading this decided to use their facebook.com as a primary email address. That’s the problem with such bolt-on services, there’s no guarantee they will continue to exist several years down the line. You’re much better off selecting a service that puts email first, like Gmail, Outlook, or Fastmail to name a few.